


Squees and boos

by yourlibrarian



Series: Reviews [32]
Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Genre: Gen, Nonfiction, Reviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 20:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30128190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: Originally posted July 19 and 21,2008 and March 9, 2009.
Series: Reviews [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/465847





	Squees and boos

In my first viewing of Dr. Horrible, I thought parts 1 and 2 were wonderful, and Neil Patrick Harris is a gem. The way he veered around from pathos to humor to dramatic leading man were wonderful. Nathan Fillion must have loved the way he got to ham it up for Captain Hammer. I'm not sure there are many actors out there who can resist that sort of role but he also sounded wonderful in song (why is it that so many actors can sing?) Felicia Day managed to seem kind and hopeful and ordinary rather than foolish in her attraction to Hammer, and her obvious liking for Horrible. (And really, when you think about it, she's got no luck at all does she? An evil genius and a self-involved superhero, those aren't the choices I'd want).

However, for me everything came to a screeching halt and eyeroll in Pt. 3 when –- do I even need to say it? Yes, she dies. *SIGH* So if we do get any further adventures of Dr. Horrible, she won't be along (unless his next great invention is a time travel device).

Because all the rest was so gleeful I will try to overlook this. And maybe for anyone not that familiar with Joss' work the ending would come as a surprise rather than a cliché and it would be his trademark switching emotional gears to leave people where they weren't expecting. Which is great when it works, but it just doesn't for me anymore. I am, however, imagining Joss as a child, playing with friends, and going "And now, everyone DIES!" No wonder he loves Hamlet.

Anyway back to Pt. 3. I squealed with delight when seeing David Fury and Marti Noxon, once more together in song, thought it was great to see Doug and Drew as evil villains, loved that there was a male groupie, a shout-out to slashers ("And now, who's gay?"), and possibly Moist on Team Queer as well? I thought there was a little too much music in Pt. 3, there's hardly any dialogue at all, except for some incidental stuff, as if they were trying to cram in everything they'd prepped at the last minute. But overall, a fun ride, with a bunch of great moments. For me the best ever was the Hammer-Horrible meeting in the Laundromat which made me laugh so hard I cried. My very favorite line was NPH's take on "The gym," with that air of "Yes, look at me, I look like I go to the gym, don't I?" Thank heavens he was nominated for an Emmy this year, he sure deserves to win.

Besides watching all those familiar names in the closing credits, it was really great to see the ME logo in action again.

I've been following some of the conversation going on about Penny, but as I haven't much more to add to what other people are already saying well, I wanted to look at the larger picture. One of the complaints surrounding Penny is that she has no agency in the story and is there simply to be fought over and then move Horrible on to being evil. But what I wonder about is what's really being said about Billy himself (or for that matter, Hammer, who seems even more 2-dimensional than Penny). The one thing we know is that both Hammer and Billy are self-aggrandizing and Penny, as best as we can tell, is motivated to do things for others. She seems to think she'll never have things come her way. In that sense she does lack agency because whatever their motives, Hammer and Billy do go out and take what they want...eventually. Penny seems to be waiting for things to happen to her.

However Penny is perfectly motivated when it comes to helping others -- witness her continued and undaunted efforts to hunt down signatures. She's pretty persistent with Billy even though he's less than interested or helpful (from her POV). She also has a thankfulness to her that is a strong quality. However timidity seems to be reviled by audiences, especially when it appears in female characters. After all Billy is pretty timid about approaching her in the first place, or doing other things such as killing someone, but this isn't seen in the same way. To me, at least, her lack of agency isn't something that leaped out at me so much as my irritation with Joss killing a character as a way to make a dramatic point, which also makes it easier for someone to complain she's just a prop, because the authorial strings are showing. This is something that throws anyone out of a story. For example, when fanfic writers have the wrong terms used by characters (i.e., Americanisms in Harry Potter or Britishims in SPN) you start realizing you're looking in the author's head instead of looking at the characters. So I wanted to look past my reaction and think more about what the whole story's saying, and therefore why Penny's presence is necessary at all.

My first thought when I watched Dr. Horrible was the framework it was set in. What is good and evil in this setting? Why does Billy want to be evil (which he has to work rather hard at) rather than good? Why is Hammer on the side of "good" when it doesn't come very easily to him either (since he's pretty unconcerned about his fellow humans). Billy says he wants social change, though from what to what is the question, and Hammer presumably wants the status quo, though he doesn't seem "in charge" of anything in particular. Given it was written during the strike, Billy seemed a stand-in for Joss himself along with the other writers on strike; on the side of "evil" was Hammer standing in for the studio heads (or studio mouthpieces anyway). So when Billy says it's not about making money but taking money away from the status quo, it seemed pretty self-referential about the project itself. In which case, who does Penny stand for? Union organizers? (She's volunteering for the shelter, we don't know what she actually does). Maybe actors and other industry workers? It would certainly explain why she's so easily impressed by Hammer's behavior. He's able to create benefits for her (he does shove her away) but his actions aren't any effort for Hammer, and a mixed bag for her (he throws her in the garbage). She seems to take his actions at face value. Billy, knowing full well how Hammer operates and what's actually of importance to him, doesn't understand why she can't see that she's pretty transitory, and a means to an end. In fact, given Part III, the casting couch metaphor seemed kind of strong.

In the Laundromat conversation when Penny mentions to Billy how long they have been coming there and yet never spoken, I wondered if that wasn't a suggestion that despite working together in project after project, the various parties had never really interacted directly about their common interests (which in Billy's mind is in opposition to Hammer's). Of course as we see from their discussion, Billy and Penny don’t actually have much in common either. They don't share the same worldview, or even the same tastes. He hates laundry and views it as tedious, whereas it's a pleasant activity for her. Billy wants them to have issues in common, but Penny's just making nice with him, as she seems to with everyone. The problem is that in terms of Billy's ambitions, she's just a distraction for him. He wants to do things for her, but are they things she really wants or will value? Are they going to take him any closer from just being rebellious to actually burning his bridges to the status quo? We don't really know; he never gets the chance to make those offers. Although at the end it's made obvious that Penny isn't all that enchanted with Hammer and is disturbed by the way he treats and thinks of her, she does believe in his ability to fill her needs. She believes in that status quo that Billy is opposed to, and dies still believing in it. She's not only isn't ready to burn bridges, but Billy suspects she'd be horrified by it.

If Billy's a stand-in for Joss, the setback with Hammer at the bridge dedication could be looked at as Joss' setback with Firefly, and maybe Hammer taking off with Penny as the Wonder Woman project, each taking him one step closer to throwing in the towel. The question is who is the Evil League (aside from a nice play on Dark Horse Comics)? The unions? An underground of creative talent? Something with the power to directly challenge the establishment, apparently. Joss' take on the media and its role in the strike seems pretty clear in Part 3, with everyone cheerleading the small concessions that Hammer has made as something magnificent, aiding many people, from the man on the street to the talking heads. Certainly Hammer's speech about the homeless was telling, and the way he talked about Penny sounded like the studios discussing the unions. "It may not seem too classy, begging just to eat. You know who does that? Lassie, but she always gets a treat." 

Even on my first listen I was reminded of how the more vocal writers were angered by having asked for so little, and yet still being offered crumbs. Listening to Hammer's song and Billy's in Pt 3 in that context seems a pretty deep jab at those willing to take whatever handouts the studios were willing to toss their way. Hammer in the meantime is congratulating himself for doing nothing more than using a pen (agreeing to terms on a contract? Greenlighting work? Signing checks?) While Billy is able to get Hammer's attention, he's unable to land a killing blow. Rather, Hammer does it to himself (by forcing the strike) and puts himself out of commission, which he then spends a lot of time whining about. Unfortunately, that strike hurt all those bystanders too as symbolized by Penny's death. Billy got his chance at another angle just as the strike brought some successes, but at what cost? On the one hand, Billy got a seat at the table. On the other, he's still alone in his living room.

Looked at this way, Hammer is merely contemptible, but there seems to be a lot of ambivalence about Penny and her POV in the story. On the one hand, she should be one of the people Billy will help by changing the status quo. On the other she's also part of the problem. The overall story suggests that people like her who are willing to compromise for very little, need to be out of the picture in order for a new establishment to be successful. Thinking of it this way I found there to be a much darker view of her character in play, and it was rather a more interesting one. If Penny is a creative muse (penny for your thoughts?) then what Joss may be saying here is that his/Billy's pursuit of ambition is self-defeating. After all, the thing he loves the most is to create, to write and present stories. But if he's busy running the world (or the new entertainment world order) he essentially becomes a suit, without the time or energy to devote to the thing he actually loves doing. The creative urge must be stifled and buried. This is not unlike what a lot of people face in their professional lives. A great salesman gets promoted and becomes a manager, but what he loves is to sell not to administrate. A classroom teacher becomes a director, Captain Kirk is made an admiral, etc. Billy becomes Dr. Horrible, but feels nothing.

######

Did I miss anyone commenting on the Dr. Horrible DVD? I finally got my copy and was mightily entertained by all the additional features. One thing that caught my attention was how frequently they addressed the Penny controversy in both the featurettes and the commentaries. The spoken commentary had some interesting bits such as Marissa pointing out that one of the extras in the auditorium scene had been an extra in "The Pack." Did any fans even notice that? Another bit I liked was when NPH noted that he had blown it in one of the Laundromat scenes, not reacting when Penny touched his leg, although Billy should have. (Joss then joked that they could fix it digitally by making his eyes spin around). It was a small insight into all the thought he put into the character. I was also fascinated to hear that it was Ben Edlund who had come up with both Moist and Dark Horse, and that he had wanted to bring Dark Horse onto Angel. I'm rather glad he didn't as I could see that being too much, but then he's managed to pull off all sorts of out-there ideas. I wonder if he'd been trying to bring Dark Horse onto SPN before Dr. Horrible came along? And I confess to also thinking Jed Whedon was a woman in his disguise as (what was it, fake Bowie?) This was probably especially the case because, ever since I saw the character, I thought he looked like Marta in the Trek episode, "Whom Gods Destroy."

Also fairly entertaining were the varied Evil League of Evil applications. I was really impressed by the creativity of the submissions. I found some went on a bit too long, but otherwise, yeah, some people definitely went a ways in their efforts. I was also rather entertained by some exchanges with NPH, who is clearly not up on the nerd brigade's practices. Asked if he'd seen anyone dressed up as Dr. Horrible he said he'd seen some pictures of Halloween costumes. Nathan Fillion scoffed and told him that tons of people had been dressed as him at ComicCon.

I have to say I'd be glad to get another installment of Dr. Horrible if only to get NPH playing him again and singing. Joss certainly seems to have an amazing touch in casting people, although I suppose only some of the cast were his choices. Apparently Stephen, the male groupie, was a last minute addition because he was a friend of the group. I really liked him though. I thought that, not only did his addition make the whole groupies concept more palatable, but I agree he was not only sweet voiced but sweet faced (he kind of reminded me of Chris on Family Guy). 

The musical commentary was, as might be expected by the concept alone, funny, and often enjoyable for the musical choices. Some of it, like the Ninja Ropes song, was a little too insider, but it was quite a genre hopscotch. My favorite song on the commentary was undoubtedly [Nobody's Asian in the Movies](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNmzegQUtFA). As many jabs as the other songs take at the performers, the business, and the failure of the writer's strike, this one particularly hits home with RaceFail'09 continuing to escalate to ever more bizarre levels. Honestly, can't people just say they're wrong and be done with it? At first it was just depressing, now it's moving to outrageous.


End file.
